LAKELAND, FL – Alex Mace did the heavy lifting for Florida Southern in game one by driving in four runs, and 10 different Moccasins had at least one hit in game two as Florida Southern swept a...Full Story

LAKELAND, FL – The long-awaited opening of Chris Bellotto Field and the return of the Florida Southern softball team to its on-campus home got off to a rousing start Friday night against Tampa...Full Story

Considering the dimensions at Barnett Field, not to mention the Florida Southern pitching, there were relatively few home runs hit there, and not many cleared the fence twice in one game. In the 36...Full Story

MELBOURNE, FL - Following a 3-1 season-opening road trip to South Carolina, Florida Southern has landed the Sunshine State Conference Player of the Week with centerfielder Shannon Bell winning...Full Story

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Florida Southern has had 16 perfect games in its history, which if it isn’t the all-time NCAA Division II record, it has to be close. Nine of them occurred at Barnett Field, but only four were full-length games that did not involve the run-rule, and one of those has already earned a spot on this list (see #19). Furthermore, of the 16 perfect games thrown by Moccasin pitchers, only four have come since the turn of the century. Three of them were 5-inning games, two of those were played at neutral sites, and one that occurred at Barnett Field involved two freshmen who split the game in their college debut against a Division III school from Maine. While that’s still an impressive start, it did not make our top-20 list, otherwise we would not have mentioned it here.

AIKEN, SC – Makayla Deuberry’s 2-run homer and three RBI helped back shutout pitching by Kristen Beacham and Jenna Weldon in game one, and home runs by Shannon Bell, Weldon and Kensie Green in game two supported a shutout by Kelli Gault and Aubrey Ehlers as Florida Southern swept South Carolina Aiken 8-0 and 5-0.

The first decade of the 21st century makes its first appearance on the list in part because of what the Moccasins did, and in part because of what an opposing player did. The result on April 8, 2000, was a doubleheader split between Barry and Florida Southern. The Moccasins took the first game 6-4, and the Buccaneers won the second, 4-2. That gave each team eight runs on the day, making it the second highest scoring of the 23 doubleheaders between the Mocs and Bucs from 1996-2010. That’s not what made this one stand out from the others.

FLORENCE, SC – A 2-run homer by Shannon Bell, a 2-run double by Alex Mace, and strong pitching by Kelli Gault and Kristen Beacham propelled Florida Southern to a 6-3 win over Francis Marion in game two after the Patriots used three home runs to power past the Moccasins 10-0 in game one of their season-opening doubleheader.

FLORENCE, SC - Florida Southern's doubleheader at Francis Marion University has a new start time with the threat of inclement weather later in the afternoon on Wednesday. The first game will now begin at 12 p.m. The games mark the start of the 2018 season for the Moccasins as they open with a 4-game road trip to South Carolina. The Mocs will be in Aiken on Thursday for a 2 p.m. doubleheader against USC-Aiken.

There is a keen sense of excitement and renewed enthusiasm for the Florida Southern softball team this year as the Moccasins return home following what amounted to an entire year on the road. With the Barnett Athletic Complex under construction throughout last spring and into the fall, the Moccasins spent months shuttling themselves across Lakeland and nearby Auburndale for practices and games while they marked off the days until their new on-campus stadium was ready for use. That day is nearly here, with Chris Bellotto Field set to officially open on February 16 against the University of Tampa. By then, the Moccasins will have already practiced there for a month and played four regular-season games on the road, but that has only served to heighten the anticipation.

Walk-off wins by their very nature are the most exciting kind, and the Moccasins have had their share at Barnett Field over the last four decades. There have even been a few occasions where both ends of a doubleheader ended in such a fashion. The most recent of those occurred on February 10, 2016, against Spring Hill College, when the Mocs trailed 1-0 going into the bottom of the seventh inning in both games but rallied for a pair of 2-1 wins.

By the time the 1990s were underway, Florida Southern had already established itself as one of the nation’s top Division II programs, even with just five seasons of fast-pitch competition in the books. The Moccasins were national runner-up in 1987 and placed third in 1989, with a 47-6 season in between. They accomplished much of their success due to dominant pitching and one of the best examples of that came on April 16, 1990, in a doubleheader against Florida Tech, which the Moccasins swept 9-0 and 7-0.

Sorting through 800+ games was only part of the challenge in composing this list of top-20 softball moments at Barnett Field. Once the 20 were selected, then those had to be ordered. A handful easily rose to the top, but the remainder weren’t so easily slotted. Since this is a countdown though, and it had to start with #20, there was a logical place to start: the first intercollegiate softball game played at Barnett Field on March 17, 1982. The Moccasins had been playing as a club team for two years prior to that, but this was where it all began officially, and it was not only the team’s first win but the first of more than 1,200 for head coach Chris Bellotto, who is still going strong in 2018.

As the Florida Southern softball team prepares to play its first games at the brand new Chris Bellotto Field, it’s time to say goodbye to the former home which served them well for the first 35 years of their existence. It may seem a little late, considering the Moccasins played their final game at Barnett Field almost two years ago; but no one knew at the time it happened, that it would be, in fact, the final time they would ever play there. On November 4, 2016, Florida Southern president Anne Kerr and athletic director Pete Meyer announced the groundbreaking of the Barnett Athletic Complex, which would include Chris Bellotto Field, and as a result, the Moccasins would be playing the entire 2017 season off campus in Auburndale. That brought to an end, almost quietly, the days of Barnett Field as home to the Moccasin softball and soccer teams.